Science & invention
Ernest Kirkendall
1914–2005 · chemist, metallurgist
Metallurgist raised in Highland Park who discovered the Kirkendall effect in atomic diffusion while teaching at Wayne State University in 1947.
- Born
Michigan- Died
Alexandria, Virginia
aged 91- Birth name
- Ernest Oliver Kirkendall
- Also known as
- Ernest O. Kirkendall
- Detroit years
- 1920s–1940s
- Field
- Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Kirkendall grew up in Highland Park, the city surrounded by Detroit, and took his bachelor's degree at Wayne University before earning his master's and doctorate at the University of Michigan. He returned to Wayne to teach chemical engineering, and it was there, with his student Alice Smigelskas, that he carried out the experiment that made his name. By placing fine molybdenum wires at the boundary between copper and brass and heating the sample, they showed that the wires moved because zinc atoms diffused out of the brass faster than copper atoms moved in. Published in 1947, the result proved that atoms in metals move by swapping places with vacancies in the crystal, and the Kirkendall effect is now basic to metallurgy and to the manufacture of alloys and electronics. Kirkendall later left research for scientific administration. Wayne State's College of Engineering named him to its Hall of Fame in 1984.
Highlights
- Discovered the Kirkendall effect (published 1947)
- Raised in Highland Park; bachelor's degree from Wayne University
- Taught chemical engineering at Wayne
- Wayne State College of Engineering Hall of Fame, 1984
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1930s–1940s
Wayne State University (then Wayne University)
He studied here and later taught chemical engineering; the 1947 diffusion experiment was done here.